1. Field of the Invention
The disclosure relates to a system to deliver game audio wirelessly, and in particular to a system to deliver prioritized game audio wirelessly with a minimal latency by processing a low-priority game audio (such as background music) and high-priority game audio (such as sound effects) in a wireless gaming system, thus transmitting high quality positional multichannel audio at a minimal wireless bandwidth.
2. Background of the Invention
A game system using wireless transmission technology to deliver game audio is popular to people. Please referring to FIG. 1, it is the prior art of a system 1 to deliver game audio wirelessly. An interactive game such as Microsoft Xbox or Sony Playstation has two main components: a game console 10 and a game controller 20. Game audio 11 is typically available as a stereo audio signal from the game console 10. The game console typically has also internet access 12 and a video signal output to a TV or display 13.
It is also shown in FIG. 1 how game audio 11 can be delivered to a wireless gaming headphone. First, a wireless audio transmitter 30 with a first antenna 31 is, typically, used to take the game audio 11 from the game console 10, digitize it, compress it (optional), put it into formatted packets, and generate the corresponding radio signal before wirelessly relaying the formatted packets to a wireless gaming headphone 40 with a second antenna 41.
At the wireless gaming headphone, the packets are received by a radio signal receiver, decoded into a digital audio signal, un-compressed (optional) and converted to stereo audio. Since a packet can get lost or be received with erred bits over the air, a re-transmission may be required. Thus, the wireless audio transceiver 30 may contain a radio receiver to receive the acknowledgement packets from the wireless gaming headphone 40. This also implies that the wireless gaming headphone 40 may contain a radio transmitter.
Game audio delivered wirelessly has, therefore, about 40 ms of latency. On an audio/video system running at 60 frames per second, this translates into about a 2.4 frame delay, which can result in an unsatisfactory user experience, especially in games where timing and latency are very important.
This delay can mean the difference between life and death in a game, such as a first-person shooter. A Jun. 26, 2008 article in EDN, “Bluetooth: sufficient fidelity even for average listeners?” stated that the current “target for the industry was about 40 ms”, and that “for gaming applications, 10 msec would be the target because gamers' reaction times allow no room for delay. It is one thing to hear audio while viewing videos, but it is another thing to expect to hear audio and instantly react to it.” (page 72).
According to the above discussions, audio latency has been one major reason why it is pretty difficult for a wireless gaming headphone to become popular. Therefore, it is needed to provide a system to overcome the disadvantage of the prior art.